Opinion: Higher education’s $64,000 question

By eCampus News staff and wire reports

February 3rd, 2012

“Are students learning?” This question should be the focus of almost everyone’s efforts in higher education: administrators, faculty members, staff, says David Paris, executive director of the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability, and a government professor at Hamilton College, for the Washington Post. It should also be the question asked by those interested in higher education: parents, employers, policymakers—well, just about everyone, including students and prospective students themselves. Unfortunately, this question isn’t the most common topic of discussion in higher education. Certainly many of us in higher education will talk about the wonderful faculty and students in our colleges and universities and the great programs and the facilities (and amenities) many institutions have…